Not Sure You Know What That Word Means

People sometimes misuse words. If another person in the piece of work corrects this misuse, so information technology tells the audience that something is wrong with the way the first graphic symbol uses words in full general.

The grapheme doing the correcting might range from doing so out of addiction, to seeking clarification on the other person's pregnant, or possibly they just don't like their native language being abused.

The character making the mistake can do and then for many reasons. A non-exhaustive list includes hyperbole, an inflated interpretation of their own vocabulary, trouble with idiomatic vocabulary, or is speaking a foreign language.

Compare Personal Dictionary, where either graphic symbol has a different opinion on what a discussion might mean, and Insistent Terminology, when a graphic symbol insists on using a item term and corrects others. Contrast Buffy Speak (the character doesn't know the "correct" words, so they just jam similar-enough words together in hopes the other graphic symbol understands), Accept a Gay Old Time (where the significant of words shift over fourth dimension), Neologism (the meaning is unclear because the give-and-take is new), and Perfectly Cromulent Word (a word is unfamiliar, but used correctly). For a listing of words that tend to cause this reaction, see Commonly Misused Words. In regards to this wiki, run across Square Peg, Round Trope.

Examples:

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    Comic Books

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW): Howard Lillja is extremely fond of the give-and-take "obtruse." While it is a legitimate English language word, he's constantly using it in the wrong form. Neither Donatello nor Angel ever seem able to convince him that he's using it wrong.
• X-Factor (2006): Valeria Richards would like you to know that the Invisible Woman vanishing is non ironic. Information technology'south whimsical, at best.

    Comic Strips

• Candorville: Lemont volition ofttimes interrupt strangers' conversations to correct their grammar, much to their displeasure, or miss the indicate of something entirely because of one misused discussion. A flashback shows that he's done this since babyhood, ignoring An Aesop because of his mom'south poor grammar. Currently he'due south got enough foresight to Not correct his higher crush'due south grammar, but non the gauge overseeing his custody example (he thinks knowing police force lingo is endearing).

    Fanfiction

• Neither a Bird nor a Airplane, information technology'south Deku!: While playing the part of a Villain, Tenya shouts "Inconceivable!" so many times that Uraraka wonders if he knows what it really means.
• In The New Adventures of Invader Zim, Norlock calls Slab Rankle out on his repeated usage of the word "punk".
• Peeking Through the Fourth Wall:
  • In episode 17 ("Luck"), the fic'southward abiding insistence on referring to Luna every bit Lincoln's "guardian" wears on the quartet of authors until That Engineer finally snaps towards the end.
  • In "Diary of Luan Loud", the Louds point out that Fic!Luan is described as "psycho", when "evil" would exist a better word.
  • In "The Diary of a Loud", Luan wonders if the author even knows what a joke is after Fic!Lynn says, "I don't get the joke" as a response to Fic!Lucy maxim something that wasn't a joke, and Fic!Lola laughs at her ain nonexistent joke.

    Film—Live-Action

• The Princess Helpmate is the Trope Namer. Vizzini repeatedly uses "inconceivable", pregnant incommunicable to imagine, to refer to things that are simply improbable or unfortunate, until Inigo Montoya finally calls him out on it. Technically, Vizzini is using hyperbole rather than outright misusing it, but his use implies a lack of imagination more than the craziness of the situation.

    Live-Action Goggle box

• In Arrested Development, it quickly becomes articulate to the Bluth family that Michael is the just one with plenty intelligence and sense to run the family business concern, and then they invite him over for an "intervention":

  Michael: I'g sorry, what exactly is this intervention for?
  (a moment of awkward silence)
  Lucille: Nosotros need you to come dorsum and run the business!
  Michael: Oh, okay. Well, so, and then, technically it's not really an "intervention". It's a trivial bit more of an imposition, if you think about information technology.
  Lindsay: Oh, whatever you wanna telephone call it!
  Michael: I'd love to phone call information technology an "imposition".

• Subverted in It's Ever Sunny in Philadelphia: Mac keeps calling everyone a jabroni.

  Charlie: You keep using that word...
  Mac: And?
  Charlie: It'south awesome!

• In the beginning episode of The Boys (2019), Butcher criticizes Translucent's superhero name:

  Butcher: "Translucent" doesn't fifty-fifty mean "invisible." It means "semi-transparent."

• Hell's Kitchen:
  • During the "make your ain bill of fare" dinner service, Season 5's Ben insisted on making some potato dish he called "pomme fondant". At service, Gordon pointed out that pommes fondant is a French dish consisting of mashed potatoes cooked in butter, which Ben'southward dish was not. Afterward he invoked this kind of reaction by repeatedly getting a "apparently salad" wrong, causing Gordon to plow to Sous Chef Scott to make sure that the term means the same thing in America that it does in U.k..
  • Worse was Flavor 3's Brad, who during the same claiming suggested they make fancy macaroni and cheese and phone call it cassoulet; the other men pointed out, to his confront, that that's not what a cassoulet is ^notation (it's a slow-cooked French bean stew or casserole normally containing duck livers), and he replied, "Well, allow's just call information technology that."
  • In season 17, Michelle was strongly encouraged to refer to her dish for an Italian food challenge as a tortellini rather than a dumpling or a pot sticker. Her teammates defenseless her referring to it as a dumpling multiple times while cooking and corrected her, Thankfully by the time she was presenting her food, she had corrected that error and non only had one of the top scoring dishes of the challenge, but had her dish on the menu for the next dinner service.
• The New Adventures of Old Christine: When erstwhile Christine kept bringing up how she thought she was racist she was told not to use the word until she learns what it means.
• Real Fourth dimension with Pecker Maher: Maher'south editorial of October 30, 2022 was a rant against people from his own side (i.due east. leftwingers) continually redefining words such as "hate", "victim", "hero", "shame", "violence", "survivor", "phobic", and "white supremacy" in an attempt to rewrite reality.

  Maher: Discussion aggrandizement is a trouble. Yous can try to change reality by changing the words, only yous can't. Information technology just stops you from dealing with it.

• When Gia made her entrance in Flavour half dozen of of RuPaul's Drag Race, she called herself "fresh tilapia." As Sharon Needles pointed out in the season recap episode (and Bianca would after point out), that's unremarkably the cheapest fish in the store, and it was hardly the Badass Avowal she was going for.
• On the game bear witness Are Yous Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, one of the questions was about what a prime number is. The children in the "classroom" wrote downward their answers and then the adult contestant started answering that prime is the rate which forms the basis of the amount a lending institution uses to prepare the involvement rate for a loan. The children, after some confused looks, started laughing in their seats. The contestant had confused "prime number" with "prime number lending rate."

    Stand-Upwards Comedy

• The premise of the title track on Bill Engvall'south Now That's Crawly album is how the word "awesome" should be restored to its original meaning of leaving someone in awe and wonder. He goes on to cite several examples, such as "winning the lottery twice", women discovering that men tin can now feel childbirth, or meeting Shania Twain Naked in Mink "property a note from my wife that said 'Have a good fourth dimension.'"

  Beak: It own't gonna happen. But that would exist awesome.

    Theatre

• The Lieutenant of Inishmore:

  Davey: Them facts are merely coexisting.
  Padraic: These guns are simply circumstantial, so, and and then likewise your brains'll be just coexisting as they leave your heads and go skidding upward the wall.

    Video Games

• Fire Emblem Awakening: In Brady's back up with Owain, Owain points out that Brady keeps using the word "sentimental" without really knowing what it means.
• The term "port" tends to exist misused in gaming circles, often conflating information technology to refer to versions which do not share the same code and/or assets with the original platform release.

    Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney: At one indicate, Jacques Portsman claims that at that place is a "mount of evidence" pointing away from him. If you lot press him on this point, even so, it turns out his "mountain of evidence" isn't really bear witness at all; simply a merits regarding his supposed lack of motive. If an attorney or Edgeworth tried to pull that kind of baloney in court, they would have gotten penalized. Especially bad because Portsman should know what the word means; he is a prosecutor, after all. Edgeworth calls him out on this:

  Edgeworth: ...Might I recommend that you review what the word "bear witness" means.

    Web Blitheness

• Homestar Runner:
  • In the Strongbad Electronic mail "secret identity", Stiff Bad and various other characters keep talking near "pseudonames". At the end, a hyperactive Strong Sorry bursts in and yells that the right word is "pseudonym".
  • In Teen Girl Squad outcome #12, the girls spend the whole episode talking almost "Valentimes Twenty-four hour period". And so-and-So, the most academically good i, finally snaps and yells that it'south ValenTINE'S Twenty-four hours. The TGS universe existence what it is, she promptly gets run over by a Formula 1 race-car... existence driven by a fork.

    Web Original

• Inquire a Pony: One tumblr pony drops the whole line in response when bearding calls him autistic for creating an enquire blog specifically about a pony with homo genitalia.
• Loreweaver Universe: From Secret Team.

  Loreweaver: "Steven I retrieve y'all may have had a serious misunderstanding nigh the nature of a secret"

    Webcomics

• Homestuck: Dirk calls Caliborn out on using the word "ironic" to characterize his enjoyment of observing human dear and romance, when information technology'due south clearly more of a weird Fetish.

    Western Animation

• Batman and Harley Quinn: Harley is annoyed at the fact people (such as Batman) call sociopaths "psychopaths".
• Ben 10: Omniverse had Ben face an alien who wants to promote peace. Unfortunately, the villain does this while wreaking havoc on the urban center. Ben eventually chosen him out with this, word-for-word.

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Y'all go along using that word, I don't think information technology means what you've become accustomed to define it as.

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inmanherm1985.blogspot.com

Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YouKeepUsingThatWord

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